Iowa football rewind: Jaziun Patterson’s big run, Deshaun Lee tested again

AMES — There was no hiding Iowa football players’ excitement in the locker room after their win over rival Iowa State.

They chanted so loudly media could hear vividly what they were saying from a room down the hallway.

“Aye we so (two words not suitable for a family-friendly newspaper),” they shouted.

There was plenty of reason to celebrate. They just beat the rival who boasted in their faces a year ago when the opposite outcome occurred. They were part of head coach Kirk Ferentz’s 200th win.

“It’s great to celebrate that with him,” defensive lineman Logan Lee said. “It’s not going to happen very often, so really just taking this one, enjoying it for the next 24 hours and then we’re going to get over it and get onto the next one.”

As Iowa looks ahead to its nonconference finale on Saturday, here are some observations from re-watching Saturday’s 20-13 win over Iowa State:

Jaziun Patterson’s big run

Iowa football delivered an exclamation point in the run game when redshirt freshman Jaziun Patterson broke free for a 59-yard carry. The big play set up Iowa for a field goal on its opening drive.

Lined up with one running back and three tight ends on third-and-1, it was no secret Iowa was going to run the ball. With all 11 Iowa State defenders lined up within five yards of the line of scrimmage, the Cyclones were well prepared for the run.

But Iowa ran a counter to the weakside to near perfection.

Patterson was the running back. Right guard Connor Colby delivered what Ferentz said was “as good (a block) as I’ve seen from Connor.”

“It was pretty good for anybody, quite frankly,” Ferentz said.

Colby quickly took out linebacker Will McLaughlin. ISU defensive back Jeremiah Cooper was behind McLaughlin and stumbled in essentially a domino effect.

The result was an open lane Patterson sped through on his way to open field.

“To see Jaz running down the field, trying to outrun that guy, that’s a great feeling,” said Colby, a Cedar Rapids native.

Iowa State safety T.J. Tampa eventually caught up to Patterson — Patterson thought he was “gone,” but his quick glance back at Tampa “slowed me down“ — at the ISU 12-yard line.

It was part of a career day for Patterson, who finished with 86 yards and one touchdown on 10 carries. Before that, he had 45 career rushing yards on 19 carries.

Mental miscues on offense

At first glance, Iowa’s lack of penalties against Iowa State may seem impressive.

After all, no team has gone through the first two weeks with fewer than four total penalties. About two-thirds of FBS teams have at least 10 penalties so far this season.

It does come with an asterisk, though.

Iowa needed to use all three timeouts in the first half because of preventable presnap mistakes that would have resulted in penalties.

The first two — both in the first quarter — were because of expiring play clocks. Then the third happened at the 8:55 mark in the second quarter when Iowa had 12 players in the huddle.

There was some margin for error Saturday considering the Hawkeyes led by double-digits for most of the game. That might not necessarily be the case at other hostile environments on the schedule such as Penn State’s Beaver Stadium or Wisconsin’s Camp Randall Stadium.

Deshaun Lee tested, shows improvement

Part of Iowa State’s offensive game plan seemed to be to try to exploit matchups against Iowa cornerback Deshaun Lee, a redshirt freshman who was making his second career start.

Iowa State quarterback Rocco Becht targeted Lee’s receivers a game-high 12 times, according to Pro Football Focus.

In comparison, Cooper DeJean, Quinn Schulte and Xavier Nwankpa’s receivers were targeted a combined 11 times.

Lee seemed to hold his own against Iowa State’s receiving corps, however. Only six of those 12 targets translated into receptions.

On a second-and-7 on Iowa State’s opening drive, Lee was one-on-one with Iowa State’s Jayden Higgins. The 5-foot-10 Lee had an obvious height disadvantage against 6-4 Higgins, but his clean coverage kept Higgins from hauling in a pass in the end zone.

Later in the second quarter, as Higgins ran a quick slant, Lee again made the play in one-on-one coverage to prevent a completion.

Higgins caught five of nine targets when he was covered by Lee, per PFF. Overall, he had eight catches on 12 targets, according to the official game stats.

Lee’s numbers against Iowa State are an improvement from his college football debut on Sept. 2 against Utah State. The Aggies targeted Lee’s receivers four times, according to PFF, and all four were completions.

Quick hits

Comments: john.steppe@thegazette.com